ASSAULT AND BURGERY: Eddie Baez says this Village McDonald’s is a crime den and scene of beatings (as above Saturday).William Farrington

(William Farrington)

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Maybe there’s something in the McNuggets.

A Greenwich Village McDonald’s on West Third Street that has been the site of at least three violent altercations — one as recently as Saturday night — is a haven for male hookers, drug dealers and scammers who use the 24/7 fast- food joint as a base of operations, frightened neighbors say.

“Whatever you want to get, including a Big Mac, you can get there — inside and outside,” said Eddie Baez, 58, a chef at Village Bagels across the street from the McDonald’s, who said his restaurant closes early to avoid the trouble that brews under the golden arches after dark.

The McDonald’s sits just blocks from NYU’s Washington Square campus and from some of the city’s ritziest restaurants, including Babbo and Blue Hill.

It’s also located in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in town, where apartments frequently sell for more than $1 million.

“They’re fighting for [real estate], drug dealers, hookers, boys dressed as girls, you name it, it’s there,” said Baez. “At the McDonald’s, it’s Halloween night every night and they [the customers] are doing business inside and outside.”

Baez said McDonald’s toxic clientele turns even more dangerous on the weekends when “hot- headed kids” come out of the bars looking for fights. “Anything sets them off,” he said.

A few doors down, Mike, 49, the manager of Ben’s Pizza, claims to have seen cars pick up people he said are prostitutes.

“About a half-hour later, the same cars come back, drop them off and they go back inside [McDonald’s],” he said.

Law-enforcement sources say they have contacted management at the restaurant several times to suggest hiring off-duty police officers — or any type of security — but have been rebuffed.

McDonald’s officials declined to comment yesterday.

“It’s a very busy intersection, there’s a subway there and it’s down the block from [bar-centric] McDougal Street,” a source said.

“Homeless people will get off the train, buy a burger for a dollar and spend the next three hours inside. The cops make arrests when it’s warranted, but they can’t arrest people for just hanging out at McDonald’s. It’s up to the manager to throw them out.”

In the last 12 months, the restaurant has been the site of at least three violent attacks:

* Last Saturday, customers video-taped a fracas in which several people were kicked and beaten on the sidewalk outside the McDonald’s.

* In October, a video of a cashier beating two women with a metal pole after they jumped the counter and attacked him went viral.

* Damian Furtch, a 26-year-old gay man, was savagely beaten by two McDonald’s patrons in March 2011.